@the-gipper said:

And let's face it, there ARE evil, multinational, military-industrial complex corporations that DO exploit the downtrodden....not that I took that necessarily as an essential element of this movie.

Remember back in the 60s or 70s when guys would wear those T-shirts that said "Question Authority" on it?

Well, in places today including Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, and probably China, N.Korea and any number of any other countries, they send people to prison for "questioning authority".

Fortunately, in this country, we are able to question authority all we want. So, I don't mind movies that question authority.

Would you have it any other way?

Personally I'm not much interested in aparteid but even if I was it wouldn't make Dist 9 a good movie.

IMO of course.

I'd say (if this were a political discussion) that a lot worse goes on in other African nations and is overlooked because there are no evil white people to blame.

WSS

@westside-steve said:

District 9

Sony

R 112 min

I realize we've been over this but in a nutshell:

Here's the basic idea.

D 9 is a sci fi hit that assumes that not only has there been alien contact in the form of UFOs but actually creatures from space living here on earth. DISTRICT 9 is an alien colony, not in the southwest US but in South Africa.

Apparently these aliens have special weaponry that can only be used by themselves thanks so some kind of genetic hokum.

So there's an experiment afoot to merge the DNA with a human. (hmmm sound a bit like AVATAR?)

The subject Wikus (Sharlito Copley) starts the Jeff Goldblum-as-THE FLY style transformation and is turning into an alien.

The special effects are pretty impressive but to be honest, who cares? There are a dozen flicks that look great and the "shock and awe" has worn off. On top of that the shaky "hand held" faux documentary camera look gets annoying pretty quickly.

So does the acting and plot.

As a matter of fact the whole darn movie is annoying and it's my guess that whatever critical love it's getting is from hammering on the same old politics that drove AVATAR.

Evil multinational corporation military industrial complex being mean to downtrodden alien minority, blah blah blah.

The problem is that it's neither as impressive nor engaging as Cameron's film.

And certainly a stretch to be considered Oscar worthy.

C-

WSS

westsidesteve@aol.com

steve, I thought there was quite a bit more to it than that. To me it was more of a biting commentary on apartheid, seeing as how the aliens here had been rounded up and restricted to certain districts, just as had the black majority in SA during apartheid.

And let's face it, there ARE evil, multinational, military-industrial complex corporations that DO exploit the downtrodden....not that I took that necessarily as an essential element of this movie.

Remember back in the 60s or 70s when guys would wear those T-shirts that said "Question Authority" on it?

Well, in places today including Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, and probably China, N.Korea and any number of any other countries, they send people to prison for "questioning authority".

Fortunately, in this country, we are able to question authority all we want. So, I don't mind movies that question authority.

Would you have it any other way?